Margaret Thatcher
The Spectator’s notes
It is good to learn that the current management of the V&A want to reverse their predecessors’ lack of interest…
Barometer
Family business Justin Trudeau, son of Pierre Trudeau, was elected to his father’s old job as Prime Minister of Canada.…
The Spectator’s notes
An enjoyable aspect of parliamentary rules and conventions is that almost no one understands them. This has become acutely true…
The end of feminism
Victory has left 21st-century feminists in a morass of social-media sniping
Premier league
Where will David Cameron rank among Tory prime ministers?
Will anyone fight, fight and fight again to save what’s left of New Labour?
Five years ago this Saturday, Ed Miliband was crowned Labour leader. Three days later, he had to deliver his first…
Why I left
I cannot be part of a movement run by half-educated fanatics
Man of many worlds
Cult novelist Michael Moorcock on fantasy, his father, and the London he loved and lost
From Major to minor
‘Lobbying,’ writes William Waldegrave in this extraordinary memoir, ‘takes many forms.’ But he has surely reported a variant hitherto unrecorded…
Political memorabilia
My first reaction on hearing of Margaret Thatcher’s death in 2013 was: ‘Great — now my autograph from her will…
Maestro maker
When Margaret Thatcher imagined perfect power, she thought of the orchestral conductor. ‘She envied me,’ said Herbert von Karajan, ‘that…
The Spectator’s Notes
It is natural to assume that, if a majority votes No in the referendum on Britain’s EU membership, we shall…
Barometer
Forty years on The forthcoming EU referendum has rekindled memories of the in-out Common Market referendum of 1975. But it…
Let’s drink to a Tory majority
Most of my friends are still on a cloud of post-election euphoria. There is one exception: those involved with opinion-polling.…
The British public is about to make a big mistake
On the weekend of 25 April 2015 I started to believe that the party I supported might not win an…
Punch and Judy politics
With the odd exception — I think principally of Charles Moore’s life of Margaret Thatcher — the genre of political…
Songs of praise for the BBC
In a ‘Dear Bill’ letter in Private Eye, an imaginary Denis Thatcher wrote off the BBC as a nest of…
Going the wrong way one step at a time
If I were to give you a budget to choose your perfect house, you would quickly have a clear idea…
Spitting Image
Hold the front page! Spitting Image is back! Well, sort of. A new six-part series, from (some of) the team…
Long life
The gulf in understanding between the old and the young has widened with the news that the young are beginning…
Thatcher’s soap
How EastEnders became a positive reflection of Tory values
The writing on the wall
It is a common prejudice about modern politics that it is all focus groups and spin, all public relations and…
Who’s afraid of deflation?
Campaigning in Putney in 1978, Mrs Thatcher famously took out a pair of scissors and cut a pound note down…
Filling in the blanks
‘So — take heart,’ said Alan Bennett, sending us out from his play, Cocktail Sticks, on a cheery note. The…
Dear Sirs and Madams
Peter Oborne 4 July 2015 9:00 am
In praise of the old-fashioned letter-writer